“So you relate to him, that’s it?”
“What do you mean, that’s it? You know how difficult it is for me to even consider spending time with a man.” She swallowed. Hard. “I actually asked him to come up to my apartment last night.” Before Suzanna could voice the excitement on her face, she added, “He turned me down.”
Suzanna’s elation drained at the statement. Rachel could see she was calculating the good friend pep talk she thought she was going to need.
Rachel chuckled. “You know why?”
Suzanna shook her head.
“He said he wants more than my body. He understands my fears and wants to prove himself to me before we do anything physical.” She couldn’t believe she’d actually spoken so freely about something so personal, but at the moment, she just didn’t care.
“Doesn’t that tell you something?” Suzanna pointed out.
“That he’s not as sleazy as most men?”
“That you can trust him.”
Rachel hesitated for a moment. Trust. God, how she hated that word. For so long she’d been plagued with insecurities, which had made it difficult to trust even herself. Putting her faith in others had been harder.
Did she trust Travis? Yes. No. She hadn’t really thought about it. She knew she liked him. Respected him. She trusted him to help her find out why her sister had taken her own life. She trusted him to protect her. But would she ever really be able to trust him with her heart?
As if sensing the unspoken, conflicting questions swirling in the air, Suzanna tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder and grinned. “All right, it’s gotten far too serious in here.” She leaned over Rachel’s shoulder and began rifling through the sketches.
“Hey!” Rachel interjected. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve decided you need some new lingerie.” She held up the raciest of Rachel’s daring attempts at seductive attire. “Let’s make you this one.”
“Huh? Why?”
Suzanna smiled mischievously. “Just in case.”
Rachel drew her hands to her mouth. “Oh, I could never. I was just playing around. I mean, Misty, maybe, but not me.”
Her assistant just ignored her and began rummaging through the fabric samples sitting on a nearby table. She pulled out an emerald green. “This matches your eyes.”
“Stop playing around, Suzanna.”
“Who’s playing around?” She moved to the pile of lace. “This light cream. This is the one you need,” she said, holding up a sample.
“I’m not designing lingerie for myself, Suz.”
“Oh, yes. You are. How much time do we have?”
Rachel blew out a frustrated breath, not wanting to admit the thought of wearing those sensual fabrics excited her. Just a little. “It could be weeks,” she replied, trying to sound annoyed. “He said he’d call today, but it could take days for him to get a lead from the hospital. I don’t now when we’ll actually see each other again.”
“Or it might take hours. We’ll need to work fast.” Suzanna moved to the phone and punched in a number.
“What are you doing now?”
“Calling the supplier. We’ll need this green by tomorrow afternoon.”
Chapter Seven
It was three days before Travis finally called Rachel, and those were the longest three days of his life. It had taken all of his willpower not to call her the second he’d gotten home after the night at the bar, but he’d managed to restrain himself from grabbing for the phone. He felt like he’d finally found a chink in her defensive armor and he hadn’t wanted to risk her patching it up, which was a good possibility, considering her tendency to close up when she felt pressured.
Damn, but the woman was wound so tight he was surprised she hadn’t snapped yet. Seeing just how the past affected her, how it had the ability to shatter her confidence in nanoseconds, made him grateful for his bland upbringing. His parents were caring, generous people, and hell, a little boring. Before his death, Gregory Gage spent his days tinkering on his computer and his evenings with his wife, doing puzzles and playing Trivial Pursuit. The wildest thing they’d ever done was go on a Caribbean cruise, which they’d had to cut short because his mother got seasick. A real Bonnie and Clyde, those two.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine being raised by a woman like Hattie Foster. She had the maternal instincts of a napkin, and a part of him—though he’d never reveal it to Rachel—almost understood why Carrie felt like she’d had no choice but to take her own life.
“Jenny told me to drop this off. She just went on her lunch break.”
Travis glanced up absently as his partner tossed a thin file folder on the desk. “Thanks,” he said.
“Mind telling me why you requested a staff list from Chicago General?” Matt asked, slinging his hands in his pockets. “A list that’s more than a decade old, no less.”